Pale
by greenwool
Summary: "There's a new cruelty that Katniss has found in her mirror, and it drives the breath from her. " Post Mockingjay. After the war, Katniss struggles to adjust.


**Pale**

* * *

_**One**_

* * *

_"What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?"_

-Toni Morrison

* * *

There's a new cruelty that Katniss has found in her mirror, and it drives the breath from her. She sees it in her bathroom mirror late in summer- just as the blueberries in the glade blush dark enough to harvest.

She has finally 'bloomed'- as her mother would say- curving spaciously out from her waist, accentuating the smallness of her still narrow frame. The reason for the swollen heaviness she has felt in her breasts reveals itself to her- they too are larger.

She stands transfixed in the dimly lit room.

Katniss thinks of the blueberries' warm sweetness and the roundness she feels when they are in her mouth. She's associating her image in the mirror with the berries perhaps because both have surprised her today. Or perhaps its because she has realized that men have an appetite for sweetness and roundness in both their food and women.

She remembers plucking the berries in the midday heat- her last stop on her way back home for the day. The glade was airless and cloaked in dappled light, the grass drier than had been in weeks past. She remembers her shock at the berries' premature plumpness.

Summer will be short this year. The winter long.

The plump fruit drops surprising easily into her hand as she picks them. They gather in her cupped palm. She picks what she can carry back home, and then reaches for a final handful to taste. She does so mindlessly, and doesn't see the sallow body of the spider until it is in with the berries in her palm, its spindly legs stretched over the top of the fruit.

Katniss comes back out of her memory. Her eyes adjust to the pale bathroom light and the scarring of her torso and arms comes into focus.

Her bodies' transformation is a mockery of her scars- a dismissal of her pain, and of her past.

* * *

She sleeps fitfully- dreaming her burns become black and soft like mold. She looks down as her chest decomposes in fast forward and Peeta grins ferally at her and rakes his eyes over her body.

She raises a cupped hand full of sun warmed berries, and a white spider crawls from underneath the dark orbs and into her chest cavity.

She awakens breathing heavily and soaked in her own sweat. The sun burns from behind the distant treeline in her window.

She hears Peeta in the kitchen. A steady hissing and earthy scent alert her that he is making coffee- once a luxury in District 12, now enjoyed daily by most residents.

Knowing she needs to clean off, she steps gingerly out of bed and feels her scar tissue pull as she stretches. The tightness is uncomfortable and painful. A quick shower will help her skin, so she pads to the bathroom. Katniss is careful to avoid looking in the mirror.

Her shower is fast, and as she dries herself she runs a hand through her hair. The short cropped bob frames her face neatly, but her thick hair is unruly at this length, leaving her hair in a near constant state of messiness.

She dresses quickly, pulling on a pair of heavily worn pants and a loose fitting cotton sleeveless shirt.

As she descends the stairs to warmth of the kitchen, her heart clenches softly in her chest. Peeta has not heard her approach and so she takes a moment to observe him as he busies himself with breakfast.

His crown of curls is robust and longer than he has ever worn it. In the summer heat, some of his more delicate curls have plastered themselves to the nape of his neck.

As he leans over the counter, his broad shoulders flex. Katniss watches the play of light on his muscles.

From the movement of his arms Katniss can see he is kneading dough. Unbidden, the image of his rough hands working the dough rises to the surface of her mind.

She dismisses it quickly, surprised at how striking the image seemed to her.

"Morning", she mumbles, and sits at the table.

Peeta looks at her over his shoulder, quickly assessing her mood. He smiles at her.

"Good Morning Katniss", he says quietly. "You're up early. Did you sleep ok?"

Katniss nods.

She traces the seams of the wood table with her fingers blankly. She is unsettled by her fascination with Peeta's hands.

Peeta returns to his dough, placing it in a pan and covering it with damp cloth. He brushes his hands together to rid them of residual flour.

He pours them both coffee and sits across from Katniss at the table.

Katniss follows the curve of his shoulders down his powerful arms. His large hands cup his mug of coffee. Her eyes flit to his face.

Peeta is smiling at her again, and he clears his throat.

"Real or not real, you once saved me from a flesh eating monkey."

A smile streches Katniss' lips.

"Real."

* * *

There are good days and there are bad, of course. Days Katniss awakens in the bottom of a closet- suffocating in the airless heat of the small, musty space. She curls into herself and disappears for hours.

Some days Peeta drags her from the depth of her malaise to the garden in the back of the house. He puts moist earth in her hands, urging her to pack it around the newly planted primroses. She obeys- lost to everything but the realness of the scent of wet dirt. Its a familiar scent- safe. Peeta's rough hands hold hers, helping her press the soul around the small plants. The skin on skin contact leaves her feeling electric and vaguely empty.

Sometimes he guides her to the forest- where the scent of pine and the crunch of dry needles under her boots bring her brief moments of clarity. They walk until they reach the shade of a small copse of pine, where Peeta settles her on a blanket, and the afternoon slips peacefully away from her.

She can sink to depths where she cant be roused. On those days Peeta sweeps her into his arms and moves her to the studio in his attic, where the scent of linseed oil and freshly shaved graphite fills her nose, and lulls her to sleep.

Peeta gathers fabrics for her- silk, and others she can't name but are smooth and soft to the touch. She pools them around herself and tries to sink underneath them. She sleeps like the dead and dreams of nothing.

When she wakes, Peeta has painted her- disappearing below the fabric, or asleep on top of them, or the look of transfixion on her face as she touches them.

She is rendered softly, carefully. Drawn more delicately than she knows she really is- her scars less visible, her face cast in light more beautiful than there is in the attic space. It is Peeta's vision of her as she breaks in front of him.

Her pain is real and recorded. It brings her relief.

* * *

The last day of August dawns cool- marking, as Katniss suspected, that summer this year will be short. She hunts early, knowing that the migratory birds would be departing soon. She wants to bring Peeta back the rest of the blueberries, so she brings an extra pack.

Maybe he would make blueberry muffins- or put them in some sort of buttery pastry.

She has shot three turkeys- enough to smoke, salt and store to help take them through winter. Her game bag is bulging and heavy as she approaches the glade where the berries grow.

The bushes are more bare than last month. Their brittle branches have lost much of their leaves, revealing the last of the blueberries- which are so dark they are nearly black.

Picking will be easy.

Katniss dumps her game bag and approaches the bushes. A glint of light catches her attention.

As she draws closer to the bushes, she realizes they are wrapped in sinewy webs.

They fall like gauze over the bushes, draping from the top and flaring toward to the ground. She stares in disbelief. She has never seen webs this big.

She feels delirious. She wonders if she is hallucinating. She stands staring for a long time, rooted to the spot by their otherworldliness.

Movement in one of the bushes catches her eye. Emerging over the top of the bush are pale, spindly legs. They pull a sallow head, speckled with glinting obsidian eyes. The spider is the size of a large bird- the largest Katniss has ever seen. It stays stock still on top of the bush, as if peering back at her. Suddenly, a silky wisp of a song escapes the arachnid, and goosebumps raise on her arms.

She stumbles backwards and flees the glade, grabbing her pack as she runs.

Is she dreaming?

Her legs pump as she flies down the meadow and over the hard-packed earth where the electrified fence once stood. Soot and powdery snow jump from below her pounding feet. She hasn't run this hard since the Games, since the Capitol…

She is nearly home.

Real or not real?

She slams into her door and collapses against it, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

The flashback hits her before she knows it is coming. Bombs explode in ears, the Capitol streets materialize in front of her. A scream tears from her throat just as the weak sun reaches its zenith in the sky.

* * *

When she comes back to herself Peeta is kneeling by her side, rubbing her back. Her knuckles are white and aching as she grips the doorknob. Cold sweat coats her like a film and her eyes are wild.

"Hey, hey you're alright," says Peeta. He strokes her cheek.

"Snow," Katniss gasps. "It's Snow."

Peeta frowns.

"Snow is dead, Katniss," he says.

Katniss shakes her head.

"No- yes, he's dead. But there are mutts- mutts in the woods. Snow must have sent them- before he..."

Peeta's frown deepens and he helps her raise to her feet.

"What happened?"

As Katniss tells him about the spiders as he helps her inside.

When she's finished Peeta has an odd look on his face.

"I don't know if they're from Snow directly," he says softly. "But- I know about those mutts. They're from- the Capitol. I remember them."

Katniss' jaw tightens.

There was only one reason Capitol mutts would be in District 12.

"Spiders singing like a mockingjay - its obvious," she snarls. "He's taunting me."


End file.
